About old

Phia: The tour name came from our recent albums. Last year I released my debut LP ‘The Ocean of Everything’, and Georgia gave us her second record ‘Astral Debris’. I thought 'Sky and Sea' had a lovely symmetry and tied our albums together in an evocative way.

What inspired you to join forces for this tour?

Georgia: Last July, just before our albums came out, Phia and I did a double single launch in our Melbourne hometown. We sang a couple of songs together that night, and the seed was planted! After touring solo and working as a self-managed indie for 10 years, teaming up with Phia for this run of shows has been incredibly refreshing. I was very competitive with women when I was younger, and my friendship with Phia has taught me that women can be formidable allies.

Phia: When Georgia and I were talking about how challenging it is to release music independently AND tour solo (which we both did in 2016), I thought: why don’t we give our albums another lifespan by touring together? As a fan, I love it when my favourite musicians collaborate - you get to see their work in a totally different light. I lived in Berlin for 5 years and was incredibly inspired by the DIY arts scene over there, it's very much about building a community and making genuine connections with people.

Georgia, what do you admire about Phia's work?

Phia is one of the most fearless artists I've ever worked with. When she’s onstage, she’s unstoppable! And I am very inspired by her DIY-approach to music-making. A classically-trained pianist, she actually started utilising the kalimba and loop pedal (now part of her signiature sound) as an imaginative way present her songs without lugging a keyboard around Europe. Phia’s got a intuitive knack for writing exquisitely simple pop songs, these gorgeous singalong choruses.

Phia, what is it about Georgia's work that inspires you?

I love how Georgia brings together the vast and the minute, drawing together the universe and the domestic. She has this clever way of getting the listener to contemplate an idea or setting in a completely new way. On a less poetic level, I’m also inspired by her professionalism and experience in the music industry - I feel like I learn something new every time we work together!

What are you most looking forward to on this tour?

Georgia: Making mix tapes for the long car trips. Getting to see parts of Australia that I've never seen before, and meeting new people.

Phia: It's been really fun rehearsing together, re-imagining our songs and getting to do something a bit different with them. I'm looking forward to seeing how our audiences react to that. And singing harmonies!

Two of Melbourne’s brightest singer-songwriters are joining forces on their most expansive national tour to date.

Indie-pop chameleon Georgia Fields and live-looping wunderkind Phia present a very special evening of musical dexterity, as they share the stage and each other’s songs – accompanying one another on everything from kalimba to casio, electric guitar to tambourine.

Hitting the road through July and August 2017, the Sky and Sea Tour will see these two unique artists lend their distinctive sound to each other’s material, as they reimagine songs from Fields’ Astral Debris and Phia’s The Ocean of Everything albums, both respectively released in 2016. Expect luscious harmonies, world-class song-craft, and impromptu audience participation.

Fields and Phia met randomly at a Paris open mic night almost 6 years ago. Both hailing from Melbourne, Phia had recently relocated to the cultural mecca of Berlin, and Fields was temporarily adventuring across Europe. The chance encounter sparked a strong creative friendship, with Fields later inviting Phia to guest on her album single Open Orange, and Phia writing an arrangement of Fields’ track Hood and the Hunter for her community choir Melbourne Indie Voices, who performed the song live for Clare Bowditch on ABC Radio National.

Now, Fields and Phia’s creative love affair continues. With new albums under their belts and a growing national audience, the pair present an exciting, collaborative set that showcases their formidable skills as songwriters, vocalists, and multi-instrumentalists.